Black Like Me
One thing that has been cool and maybe somewhat of a surprise is that people constantly think I am Costa Rican, especially when I'm working as a waiter in the restaurant. Whereas in Mexico, occaisonally someone would ask if I was Mexican, and I probably looked Mexican enough to blend into crowds in large cities like Mexico City and avoid pickpocketing which I noticed tended to happen to the whitest, least Spanish speaking people. In most settings, I was for more likely to be called gringo, which is mostly true, or guero which literally means someone with light hair, eyes, and complexion, which was kind of annoying to hear from people of relatively the same hair, skin, and eye color as me. In Costa Rica, on the other hand, people tend to take it for granted that I'm Tico. If I'm talking to tourists in a bar, one of their first questions is often how I learned to speak English so well. It was only a matter of time before I started playing along, faking a slight accent, and telling people I was from San Jose. It's funny how quickly my attitude towards tourists has changed, because for 5 or 6 months I was one myself. But now all of the foreigners that live here, or at least many of them, have a sort of high and mighty, "get out of my country gringo" attitude. Then again, considering the breed of tourist in Costa Rica compared to say, Mexico or Guatemala, I can totally understand this. Whereas in those countries, the average young tourist was a backpacker from any variety of countries traveling for an extended time on a small budget. In Costa Rica, considered safe by Americans, the average tourist is from America, in a big package tour, for a week or two at the most, with a huge budget. Tunas abound, fat ass midwesterners abound, yuppies abound, even high school kids can abound at times. So I don't feel nearly the same comraderie with them that I often felt with travelers in other countries. In fact, those kinds of people are one of the best reasons for leaving America in the first place. So with these types, and even backpackers sometimes, I have taken to amusing myself in relatively harmless ways. Anyhow, the point was, that these people and often the customers in restaurants tend to take for granted that I'm Tico, timidly trying to speak Spanish to me or asking if I speak English. Additionally, it's pretty common for me to speak to a Costa Rican and for them to have this puzzled look on their face, I've come to recognize that face. It's the "How come this Costa Rican guy speaks with a gringo accent?" Sometimes they even ask, "But, aren't you Tico, why do you have an accent?" or I can tell that there's extra curiosity when they ask where I'm from. So this was a bit of a revelation for me. I really do look Costa Rican. Not so much Mexican or Guatemalan or Nicaraguan, although not enitrely unlike them, but specifically Costa Rican. Which I've also found out means I'm black. Many Costa Ricans, with varying degrees of racism, like to consider themselves white, even to the point that a common soccer taunt against other Central American countries is "Indio! However, the fact of the matter is, that although Costa Ricans do in fact have lighter skin on average than other Latinos, and they do have a higher concentration of European blood, a fifty year research project revealed that Costa Ricans are mestizo (or mixed blood), 40-60% white, 15-35% Indian, and 10-20% black, with the specific ammounts depending on social class. So if I'm half Costa Rican, I must be 5-10% black which is the coolest thing I've heard all year.
And because my dad was born here, I have the right to permanent residence without exceptions. If I would have gotten my shit together before I turned 26, I could have had duel citizenship. That being said, actually figuring out what I need to get my residence has been a big pain in the ass. The Costa Rican immigration office and the lawyers I've talked to have told me one thing, while the Costa Rican consulate in Los Angeles has been telling my dad another. One thing both countries agree on is that they want my dad's birth certificate, my birth certificate, and my criminal record. Having my family get my criminal record was a bit of a pain in the ass as well, and I'm not even sure if I have the super offical version that Costa Rica might want (to get an offical government criminal record, I have to have my finger prints digitally taken in the United States, which doesn't do me any good now that I'm here of course). It turns out I do have a record though. I do have one MIS-DE-FUCKING-MEANOR count of fucking skateboarding without a fucking helmet in a fucking skate park. MIS-DE-FUCKING-MEANOR. SKATEBOARDING. Fucking California. I doubt it will bar me from getting my residency, but it's still bizarre as hell to me, which is why I put all the "fuckings" in there, I guess if I'm a convicted criminal, I should start to talk like one. Anyways, La Migra told me to get my documents stamped by the Costa Rican consulate, but the consulate wanted $40 a piece to stamp them, so I'm hoping that I can take care of that here. For such a small country, Costa Rica actually has a huge, bearueacratic, government. So it looks like this is going to be one of those things, where I have to keep bugging people, and keep throwing money at, until it goes through, it might not even be worth it. Most of the English teaching work is under the table anyway, although residency would allow me to legally work anywhere in the country as well as get a Costa Rican passport, which might help slightly if I ever decide to go to Cuba, but I don't think it really matters, and most countries actually require Costa Ricans to get costly visas before visiting, so I think my US Passport would be far more useful anyway, but you never know when something like an extra passport will come in handy.
So, because I haven't yet worked out my residency, I have to leave the country for the weekend. For some reason, you are only allowed to stay three months at a time, then you have to leave for three days before you can come back. I've heard they're not too strict about this if you happen to stay four months and come back after a day or even a few hours, but I don't want to fuck around. Besides, I'm looking forward to going to Nicaragua. It's one of those countries I feel I was robbed of when I had to go back to the US before I made it to Costa Rica. So from June 25th-28th, I will be on the Isla de Omotepe, a large island in a huge lake (I'm still kind of amused by the idea of islands inside of lakes). I hear it's really nice and it was one of the places I planned to go anyway and I'm also very curious about Nicaragua in general. There's a lot of racism in Costa Rica against Nicaraguans, so it will be interesting to see the place itself.
And because my dad was born here, I have the right to permanent residence without exceptions. If I would have gotten my shit together before I turned 26, I could have had duel citizenship. That being said, actually figuring out what I need to get my residence has been a big pain in the ass. The Costa Rican immigration office and the lawyers I've talked to have told me one thing, while the Costa Rican consulate in Los Angeles has been telling my dad another. One thing both countries agree on is that they want my dad's birth certificate, my birth certificate, and my criminal record. Having my family get my criminal record was a bit of a pain in the ass as well, and I'm not even sure if I have the super offical version that Costa Rica might want (to get an offical government criminal record, I have to have my finger prints digitally taken in the United States, which doesn't do me any good now that I'm here of course). It turns out I do have a record though. I do have one MIS-DE-FUCKING-MEANOR count of fucking skateboarding without a fucking helmet in a fucking skate park. MIS-DE-FUCKING-MEANOR. SKATEBOARDING. Fucking California. I doubt it will bar me from getting my residency, but it's still bizarre as hell to me, which is why I put all the "fuckings" in there, I guess if I'm a convicted criminal, I should start to talk like one. Anyways, La Migra told me to get my documents stamped by the Costa Rican consulate, but the consulate wanted $40 a piece to stamp them, so I'm hoping that I can take care of that here. For such a small country, Costa Rica actually has a huge, bearueacratic, government. So it looks like this is going to be one of those things, where I have to keep bugging people, and keep throwing money at, until it goes through, it might not even be worth it. Most of the English teaching work is under the table anyway, although residency would allow me to legally work anywhere in the country as well as get a Costa Rican passport, which might help slightly if I ever decide to go to Cuba, but I don't think it really matters, and most countries actually require Costa Ricans to get costly visas before visiting, so I think my US Passport would be far more useful anyway, but you never know when something like an extra passport will come in handy.
So, because I haven't yet worked out my residency, I have to leave the country for the weekend. For some reason, you are only allowed to stay three months at a time, then you have to leave for three days before you can come back. I've heard they're not too strict about this if you happen to stay four months and come back after a day or even a few hours, but I don't want to fuck around. Besides, I'm looking forward to going to Nicaragua. It's one of those countries I feel I was robbed of when I had to go back to the US before I made it to Costa Rica. So from June 25th-28th, I will be on the Isla de Omotepe, a large island in a huge lake (I'm still kind of amused by the idea of islands inside of lakes). I hear it's really nice and it was one of the places I planned to go anyway and I'm also very curious about Nicaragua in general. There's a lot of racism in Costa Rica against Nicaraguans, so it will be interesting to see the place itself.